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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Picture Books to Love: A Remainder of One

A Remainder of Oneby Elinor J. Pinczes

Target Skills: Division of Smaller Numbers, Remainders

Book Synopsis: Twenty-five bugs are on a mission to march in a tidy arrangement for the queen. However, every time they try a new arrangement, poor Joe is left out. After several tries, the bugs finally find an arrangement that will successfully include Joe.

Where's the Math?: This book introduces the idea of remainders in a visual way. It allows students to see that remainders are the leftovers that do not fit in the equal groups created by division. This book also explores the idea that while no number is divisible by all numbers, there are those that do work.

Questions to Ponder:

What is a remainder?

How can we look at a division problem and determine if a remainder will result before completing the work?

How can we use arrays to determine if a remainder exists?

Activity Ideas:

Have students recreate the arrangements from the book and write a division number sentence for each.

Create additional problems using the story structure to practice division with remainders.

Develop divisibility rules as appropriate for your grade level. Provide students with a variety of number sentences and have students create arrays in order to determine when the numbers will divide evenly without remainder(s). This array work will lead to generalizations about divisibility.

Practice the process of "checking" division. Determine the number of bugs in each arrangement and add the extras to arrive at the original number of bugs.